Journalizing online, this online diary is the best thing that ever happened to me. Ok first of all, let me explain writers of Travel Blogs, 90 percent of what they write are lies.

I lie to myself --- and writing forces me to come to grips with these self-lies. I strive to write the best truth down as I understand and know, and be damned if I am going to make you read as a child, who is never supposed to know the truth.

You the readers demand the lies, do not look around, it is you, not all the other readers. You expect well written lies, which are plausible and impossible to disclaim, the best writers can weave a story that nobody can refute, and the writer always appears and feels incredibly honest.

Great Writers are Great Liars.

OK, I take that back, for sure the most well read Travel Writers are blatant, liars; they do it naturally, they are writing travel brochures, and receive money from Hotels.

The only way you know the writer is a liar, is you always feel good after reading the writer. He or she is writing to you from the parent voice, the adult that knows best what you need to hear.

After writing this travel Blog for over 10 years I have a good understanding of my readers. People who comment, come in spurts, they love me, identify with me, and often become ardent fans that support me, and love me, in the same way children love their kindergarten teacher.

The readers love me like their kindergarten teacher, until I accidentally write a poignant Blog post that describes them, and their personally idiosyncrasies too well, it hits home, and spanks them emotionally. Their inner child then comes out, protects them, their ego defense mechanisms arrive, put up walls, and the slow down on reading and drift away, coming back for small doses, but like the Kindergarten teacher who spanked the student, they never forgive me until years later when they know the teacher loved them enough to tell the truth.

My readers become radically, obnoxiously angry if as a writer I do not lie, and they believe I must lie to them, they want it, they are going to spend 5000 dollars on a vacation, tell me lies.

It is dangerous to a writer’s career, reputation, and livelihood to write the truth. Readers become indignant, and will write hate mail to people, who write the truth, the truth will set you free, but people do not want freedom, they want a perfect mother and father who allow them to remain children.

Children become frightened easily, and parents generally lie to the children, everything is going to be fine, even when it is not.

Leaders of men, the President of the USA, your Preacher, and your best friend tell you,“Everything will be fine, everything will work out.”

They say all is good, fine and dandy, the world is a great place, even when it is 100 percent certain, and they are lying. Like 99 percent of writers, and parents, and leaders the people listening demand to hear the lies, the truth would make them afraid, and fear is revealed as anger, the anger protects people who are afraid. A person who is afraid, must be ready to fight, there is a need for an adrenaline rush.

I am going to insert some edited and paraphrased definition here from Wikipedia.org here explaining the book,I'm OK, You're OK, by Thomas A Harris MD.

And, instead of stealing the words, and paraphrasing them to make them my own, I will just edit the extra confusing information, and help to simplify the concept I want you the reader to learn today.

Did you know? 90 percent of writers steal all their ideas from other writers, and they churn them, it is called churnalism. One writer writes something good, the other 9 take it, claim it, rewrite it in their words, soften it like a parent, make it plausible, a lie, and publish as their original work. I could do this below, but that is not honest writing, and the truth is, Wikipedia can often hash, and rehash semi-factual information and explain 10 times better than my rendition of the information.

Please remember, I am explaining about why writers lie, and hoping to reveal to you the reader, why you want a lie. I have written over 7000 Blog post, I am aware when I go from Parent, to Adult to Child, writing forces me to introspect, and arrive aware of the real situation, and if I was greedy, or wanted fame, maybe I would be a different writer.

FROM WIKIPEDIA.ORG - EDITED A LITTLE

The Parent, Adult, Child (P-A-C) Model

Harris explains that a person’s psychological state seems to change in response to different situations. The question is, from what and to what does it change? There is the proposal that there are three states into which a person can switch:The Parent, the Adult and the Child.

Sometimes a Parent.Sometimes an Adult.Sometimes the Child.

Harris describes the mental state called the Parent by analogy, as a collection of "tape recordings" of external influences that a child observed adults doing and saying. The recording is a long list of rules and admonitions about the way the world is that the child was expected to believe unquestioningly. Many of these rules (for example: "Never run out in front of traffic") are useful and valid all through life; others ("Premarital sex is wrong", or "You can never trust a cop") are opinions that may be less helpful.

In parallel with those Parent recordings, the Child is a simultaneous recording of internal events — how life felt as a child. Harris equates these with the vivid recordings that Wilder Penfield was able to cause his patients to re-live by stimulating their brains. Harris proposes that, as adults, when we feel discouraged, it is as if we are re-living those Child memories yet the stimulus for re-living them may no longer be relevant or helpful in our lives.

According to Harris, humans start developing a third mental state, the Adult, about the time children start to walk and begin to achieve some measure of control over their environment. Instead of learning ideas directly from parents into the Parent, or experiencing simple emotion as the Child, children begin to be able to explore and examine the world and form their own opinions. They test the assertions of the Parent and Child and either update them or learn to suppress them. Thus the Adult inside us all develops over time, but it is very fragile and can be readily overwhelmed by stressful situations. Its strength is also tested through conflict between the simplistic ideas of the Parent and reality.

Sometimes, Harris asserts, it is safer for a person to believe a lie than to acknowledge the evidence in front of them. This is called Contamination of the Adult.

I STOP THE WIKIPEDIA PASTE

By writing to an audience of people who do not enjoy incongruence, the want consistency of a parent, and are used to writers lying, they want the writer to be the parent, and they want to the child listening. After year of reading, this is what they have learned to expect, and demand.

As a writer I have a few options of voice:

Parent to parent.Parent to adultParent to child

Adult to adultAdult to parentAdult to child

Child to parentChild to adultChild to child

Please, please, please, and I again I say please, accept we are all human, all readers, including me, want an enjoyable lie, we want to enjoy are lives, and not work at it, we do not want mental fatigue by thinking too much. Life is best lived as a child, with a parent around to protect, and adults making the decisions.

“Sometimes, Harris asserts, it is safer for a person to believe a lie than to acknowledge the evidence in front of them.”

For example, I am 100 percent sure that the 99 percent of the money given to charities that work overseas as NGO’s is a waste of money, nothing is accomplished, the people working piss away the money.

Yet, you the good person give money, and refuse to believe me, because like a good child, you eat the lies because it makes you feel good inside. Plus, you enjoy being a loving parent, who can give money to orphans, and help dying babies, because let us face it, you was truly a shitty parent, or you think you was, delusions and illusion, and perceptions, nothing is real…

NGO’s play on the P-A-C stuff to the max, and sadly, like a child, often they believe the story they are telling. They never create measured data that say, yes our project worked, or no our project failed, it always works because they cannot as a child become an adult, or they would not have a job.

Well, my children who read me in Guatemala are now are throwing huge fits because I abandoned them and I am in Africa. A few are angry, why did father leave, he cannot leave? Like a death, they are going through the fives stages of grief.

Moving countries and continents for a Travel Blogger. The most well read travel bloggers do not travel, too many abandonment issues, too funny.

1. Denial - You cannot leave Andy

2. Anger - Why the F did you leave Andy?

3. Bargaining - Andy, you will make me love the new country the same.

4. Depression - Andy, I do not love the new country of topic.

5. Acceptance - Andy, you left me, I will stop reading, and only check in, hoping he returns to a country I want to know. You are a pig Andy, a selfish person, who does not care, what good parent would leave, and TRAVEL!

Fun stuff, but I doubt I can ever become a famous writer, unless some truly wise editors, working with me, and we conspire to only explain the truth in parables or highly indirect explanations.

I love novelist, they get to blame their beliefs on the hero, or the villain, or somebody in the book. The reader can identify with the hero, learn to be the hero, and never know, he or she is really the idiot villain.

We all write one story of our lives, and live another, the closer reality coincides with truth, and the easier is to find paradise. Paradise is the place we arrive at,“It looks like the brochure.”“It looks like the brochure a year later.”“It looks like the brochure after living there for a year.”

In the movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the woman walks up to the receptionist and screams,"I want to stay at the other hotel. The one that's in the brochure."

Conclusion:

By writing long enough, by spitting out my own thoughts, I become painfully aware of the inconsistency, the incongruence, the small lies I tell myself. I can deny them, live with them, change them, or learn to love myself unconditionally like an adult, not a child.

And of course, I must thank my childish readers for attacking me, scrutinizing me, and throwing temper tantrums, and writing me hate mail, they make me know I am telling the truth, the fear, that turns to anger comes forth like a raging river. And sorry, children do not get to run my life; you get banned, and must sit and listen.

But all in all, I enjoy knowing I am a child, looking to play with other children. And, when the child is in danger, I can become the parent to protect myself, and the adult that looks at both sides of the issue, and lets the truth be revealed.

By journalizing, I have found the Hotel in the brochure, and I love it, the man in the mirror is my hero, yes, Dirk Pitt from a Clive Cussler book challenges me that boy, but in the end, I still get the girl, and he is just a character in a book.

I go around and around with myself, sometimes I think to myself, I need to remove all the grammar problems, and word things perfectly. But, I am leaving for Kara, Togo, today I will travel about 200 miles, this is real travel, complete with mistakes, incongruencies and wrong paths. To make this perfect would deny you the right to look over my shoulder and feel, sense, and know the story I am living, this is not a game of writing, I am really a traveler.

Join the conversation!

This reminded me of some of he feeling from A Passage to India. Sometimes life forces us to come to grips with reality and our feelings. It can be really catastrophic for some people. And excruciatingly emotionally painful.
I am a little afraid I try to look on the bright side almost to a fault. LOL
Phil J

I would have probably set up a travel blog if this whole internet thing had been available starting in the 60s. Now I figure if I have anything I consider worthwhile info I will place it here and possibly a couple of other sites. This now is my main site for travel.
Early on I experienced travel pros? to often be liars or at the very least they would not tell the whole truth. They would conveniently leave out info that would have made me change my mind about visiting some areas.
But it did eventually make me a more experienced and honest traveler. Now if I am asked about a place that I know well I give out as much info as I can, the good, the bad and the ugly. Whats amusing is they often ignore what I tell them when it comes to the bad and ugly and go there anyway because they will say, But our travel agent and Joe down the block, etc says this is a great place to go, etc. When they return they either live in denial or come clean and tell me , Sorry Bill, you were right. Oh well.

As an example my first trip to the Caribbean I went to Aruba. A fine, clean, good food, good beaches and activities, exceptionally friendly natives and all the good things you can imagine.
I enjoyed the trip only because I met a lovely lady there and we enjoyed doing things together for 10 days.
But what is the problem with Aruba? Their site banned me after a week back home.
I went there because I wanted both a Caribbean and the Dutch flavor on my trip. I might as well went to Florida, Hawaii, Malibu, Gulf Coast. The island should be considered for Statehood, It is so American other than the friendly people and food. They prefer dollars, everyone living there speaks very good English as it is required in school, there are all kinds of condo shares filled with Americans, the beaches, clubs, restaurants, etc all are mostly Americans. I felt as if I never left home, It was disappointing and I said so. There were a few Europeans and Japanese, very few.
Double, triple check where you want to go if you have special expectations so you wont get there and be angry.

I have gone to a lot of places like that.Just little America. LOL. But I try to know in advance a little what to expect. I actually travel to meet nice people and see beautiful surroundings so I would have liked it.
Never go to Hawaii to see native Hawaiians or people as they were on Waikiki in about 1930. It does not exist now. Florida or California would be a lot cheaper and easier.
I kind of like the Philippines and Australia. Not much artificial about either place. Just ordinary people doing ordinary things. And a whole lot of really nice scenery. A little hard to understand some of the Australian language but you can make it out with a little concentration. Just British with an Aussie accent.
I like the Philippines because I can rub elbows with the Filipino girls and visit with a lot of ex military Americans. I never get homesick there. Just pop into any night club or beach resort cafe and there are bound to be several Americans sipping suds and enjoying a bit to eat.
Phil J